365 days – One hundred adventures

Beautiful and talented Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in New York City, apparently having thrown herself off the building. Investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects that her death may not have been a suicide, and instead may be connected to her father, an enigmatic and reclusive director of cult-horror films. As Scott probes deeper into the Cordova family, he is drawn into a twisted and dangerous world that threatens his very sanity.

I absolutely love the way that author Marisha Pessl interspaces the main narrative with news articles, webpages, photographs, medical reports, and other things that Scott uncovers during his search for clues about Ashley Cordova’s life. It makes the story seem so much more visceral when a character is describing a dark web that revolves around the enigmatic director, only to follow it with screenshots of the webpage itself.

Night Film unfolds like series of Russian nesting dolls, with every clue that Scott uncovers raising more questions than it answers. Reading this novel felt like walking down an endless corridor lines with doors where every door only opens onto another corridor. It is a testament to Pessl’s writing style that she manages to keep her reader completely in the loop the entire time. She avoids the “gotcha” twist that too often defines the thriller genre, and instead chooses a slow and subtle approach to building tension.

I’m hesitant to explain much of the plot, since exploring and unraveling the mystery that is Ashley Cordova was such a fun experience. Early on, we are introduced to Ashley’s father, generally just referred to as Cordova, a mysterious director who produces films so terrifying that several of them have been banned. Underground screenings draw an eclectic crowd that worships Cordova for having awoken them to a higher state of understanding. As an avid fan of the horror genre, that only film that I could even partially equate with Cordova’s work would be Lars Von Triers’ Antichrist, also known as “The One Starring Willem Dafoe’s Penis”. That’s the only horror film I’ve seen in the past few years that made me feel truly uncomfortable. In Night Film, the movies made by Cordova are described in broad strokes, giving them an eerie, detached feeling that adds to the overall unease of the novel.

I read a lot of horror novels, some of them good, most of them mediocre. I would definitely place Night Film in the former category, as I was glued to the pages throughout the duration of the book.

My rating: 4.5/5

Note: As much as I adore my eReader, Night Film is a book better appreciated in print rather than digital.

In the freezing waters off the coast of Washington, a boy succumbs to the crashing waves. He dies, cold and alone. Then, he wakes up. He is naked, weak, and thirsty; but he is alive. He is entirely alone in a deserted and desolate place. As he struggles to understand what happens, he begins to question whether or not this is truly the end, and whether or not there is more to life after death.

This was the June pick for my monthly book club, and the theme was “dealing with the afterlife”. Considering that author Patrick Ness wrote the heart-breakingly beautiful A Monster Calls, I went into this novel fully expecting another tearjerker. Instead, More Than This defied all my expectations by journeying into the world of science fiction.

Seth wakes up to a world that has been abandoned. The neighborhood he finds himself in is covered in weeds, dirt, and silence. Since Seth clearly remembers drowning in the freezing waters of the Pacific Ocean, he comes to the conclusion that he is in a strange, lonely version of Hell. If this is Hell, it’s an oddly mundane version that seems to focus more on discomfort and isolation than fire and brimstone. Seth’s attempts to solve the mystery of his surroundings are what carries that bulk of Ness’ narrative.

Patrick Ness has always been a favorite author of mine because he tackles delicate issues with tact and sensitivity. Instead of beating his readers round the head with a “lesson” that needs to be learned, he tends to come at the situation sideways. By doing so, he avoids the proselytizing that can occasionally saturate novels that deal with death and dying. His characters manage to be vulnerable without being weak, and they are resourceful while still being immature enough to make mistakes.

I really enjoyed this novel. It continually managed to surprise me, and avoided coming across as preachy. I have always enjoyed a new novel by Patrick Ness, and More Than This continued the trend.

My rating: 4/5

You can find More Than this here on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

In order to solve the increasingly violent clashes between the United States government and the Native American tribes of the Black Hills, a radical solution is proposed. The Cheyenne are a matrilineal society, meaning that the children belong to their mother’s tribe. The United States asks for volunteer women to marry into the Cheyenne, becoming part of their culture while also trying to introduce Western values within the Native Americans. May Dodd, who has spent a year wrongfully committed to a mental institution, joins a group of women volunteers venturing into the untamed prairies of the Midwest in hopes of finding a new and better life among the “savages”.

It’s clear that author Jim Fergus did an extensive amount of research on the time period and the Cheyenne people prior to writing this novel. Their language and culture are well represented in One Thousand White Woman. He represents the Cheyenne as a people with both good and bad aspects, and thankfully manages to avoid the “noble savage” trope. This is not Dances with Wolves, where the Native Americans are represented as being in perfect and peaceful communion with nature and their fellow man. The Cheyenne are capable of stunning violence as well as loving relationships, just like every society that has ever existed on Earth.

Since the Native Americans are presented as rather primitive I kept waiting for my other least favorite stereotype to rear its ugly head, that of the “white savior”. Also easily recognized in Dances With Wolves, the white savior brings logic and reasoning to a group of people who would would be utterly lost without them. I was pleasantly stunned to see that Fergus somehow evades this pitfall as well. The white woman are looking to be saved more than they are looking to save the Native Americans. Most of them have volunteered for the “Brides for Indian” program to escape horrible circumstances, and have little interest in converting their new husbands to a Westernized system of thinking. The few women that are depicted as attempting to convert or manipulate their Native husbands are seen as an annoying menace.

Considering that Fergus somehow managed to walk the incredibly thin tightrope between cliches, I thought I’d enjoy this book more than I actually did. However, there were a few problems with his writing style that took away nearly all my enjoyment from One Thousand White Women. The first is the Fergus seems to have been trying to break the world record for number of extraneous commas in a novel. This could be something that no one else notices and just annoys me, since I spend an above average amount of time correcting English grammar.

The second thing I found increasingly maddening was how Fergus chose to write his dialogue. He made the decision to italicize any words that are in an English dialect. For example:

“No you don’t, suh, you do not so much as touch my Feeern Louuuuise. Evah. You heah me? Nevah, evah do you lay a finger on my darlin‘ dawg“

“Ya’ve come to the right place, if you’re looking for remote, Broother Anthony that’s for shooore,” said Meggie Kelly greeting the fellow. “Me an’ Susie are a couple a good Catholic gooorls ourselves. An’ we’re ‘appy to ‘aveya along – right Susie?”

Is is just me, or is that the most infuriatingly distracting way to write dialogue? It annoyed me just to type it. Reading this book gave me an active headache, and towards the end of the novel I just started skipping sections that contained italics out of sheer spite. Had I known what I was in for, I would read this book on my eReader, which lacks the ability to italicize words. Although that still would have left the ridiculous drawn out vowels…

It’s rare that such small things are able to detract so greatly from my enjoyment of a book. But both of these issues were so prevalent and obvious that, despite its virtues, I nearly put One Thousand White Women back on the shelf without finishing it.

My rating: 2/5

You can find One Thousand White Womenhere on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

Amidst the turmoil of World War II, Madeline Hyde’s husband Ellis and his best friend Hank randomly decide to venture into the highlands of Scotland in search of the Loch Ness Monster. Both men have been deemed medically unfit for the army, Ellis for colorblindness and Hank for flat feet, but that does not stop the glares and whispers when people see them out of uniform. When they reach a tiny Scottish village and check into the local inn, Ellis and Hank begin acting secretive and wild, drinking all day and well into the night. Frequently left behind while her husband is off monster-hunting, Maddie gets to know the locals and struggles to remember who she is outside of her marriage.

Author Sara Gruen is best known for her wildly popular Water for Elephants as well as the tragically underrated Ape House. For her most recent novel, Gruen dives into one of the most famous and enduring legends, that of the Loch Ness Monster. However, anyone going into At the Water’s Edge expecting to be thrilled by exploits of monster hunting will be tragically disappointed. I would estimate that nearly 75% of the novel takes place in the small hotel where Maddie and her husband are staying. This is not to say that At the Water’s Edge isn’t an interesting book with an intriguing plot line, but I did spend a fair bit of time wondering when the hunt for Nessie was going to get underway.

Despite the intense lack of creatures from the deep, the plot of the novel is carried along by the force of Maddie’s character. She is a woman who finds herself married to a man she barely recognizes, one that does not seem to respect her or take her feelings into consideration. Ellis goes from being merely immature to downright repugnant over the course of the novel. Luckily there is a strong and honorable innkeeper available to catch her eye. Gruen takes advantage of the stereotypical Scottish male that has been romanticized by novels such as Outlander. Angus is strong but possesses a gentle heart. He provides for his fellow man in times of scarcity without asking for anything in return. He is a war hero with a tragic backstory. You can probably fill in the rest of the blanks from there.

I couldn’t decide how I felt about the romantic angle in this book. In some ways it comes about naturally enough and doesn’t feel too forced. But on the other hand, why is it in novels that the beautiful but tragically unhappy heroine manages to find her strong and valiant protector in literally the first male she meets after realizing she is unhappy? It’s so utterly predictable that as soon as Angus was introduced and described, I made a note in my book journal: “obligatory love/savior”.

That said, I couldn’t help but rooting for Maddie as she struggles to fit in with life in a small Scottish village. I’ve always loved Sara Gruen’s writing style, she is compellingly readable and my mind sunk into her narrative without a moment’s hesitation.

My rating: 4/5

You can find At the Water’s Edge here on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

Owen and Mara are bonded as only twins can be. They share everything, and have no secrets from one another. So when Owen is accused of rape by Mara’s good friend Hannah, her world and everything she knows to be true is called into question. As lines are drawn between “Team Owen” and “Team Hannah”, Mara must face the choice between supporting the brother she loves or following her conscience.

This book left me feeling devastated. Author Ashley Herring Blake immerses her readers in a state of nearly desperate melancholy. No matter what choices Mara makes, she is turning her back on someone she loves. An eighteen year old girl is not emotionally mature enough to handle the situation that Mara finds herself in. Blake does a fantastic job of treating her characters like real people. Mara’s confusion, anger, and grief are real and visceral. I felt my heart breaking again and again along with hers.

Mara is utterly shattered when her twin brother is accused of raping her friend. Her emotional annihilation continues as Owen defends himself by saying that Hannah was willing at the time but is “crying rape” after an argument. Mara is an outspoken feminist who has been raised by her mother to rebel against gender stereotypes and fight for what she believes is right.Her faith is further weakened as she sees her mother side with Owen and dismiss Hannah’s claims as an “overreaction”.

This novel feels particularly relevant for where we currently are as a society. The #MeToo movement is making great strides at raising awareness of the sexual assault and abuse that women experience throughout their lives. But there are still instances every day where this sexually abusive behavior by men is shrugged off or normalized. There was a particularly crushing scene in Girl Made of Stars where Mara wears an outfit to school that is deemed inappropriate by her male principal, and she is promptly suspended for “not dressing like a lady”. This incident occurs while her brother, who has been accused of rape, enjoys the support and solidarity of his family and friends.

I could go on about the myriad of instances both small and large that Blake illustrates in her novel and how each one resonated with me and my experiences as a woman. Several of her character’s are also dealing with issues of sexuality and gender nonconformity which helps to paint a more inclusive portrait of a modern day teenager’s experience in high school.

By the time I finished the last page and closed the covers on Girl Made of Stars, I felt wrung out. I was equal parts despairing and hopeful, enraged and uplifted. I would absolutely recommend this novel.

My rating: 4.5/5

You can find Girl Made of Starshere on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

Every night the boy-king of Khorasan receives a new bride. They are married, often without setting eyes on one another. The new wife is then escorted to her rooms. In the morning, she is dragged from her room and strangled with a silk code. Nearly seventy girls have died so far. Sixteen year old Sharhzad volunteers to be the next victim for this monstrous Caliph, but she has a secret. Her dearest friend was one his murdered wives, and Sharhzad is out for vengeance. Not only does she not intend to die at the break of dawn, but she plans to end this cycle of violence once and for all.

This is a re-imagining of the tale of Scheherazade from One Thousand and One Nights. This collection of Middle Eastern folklore is from unknown origins and contains the popular legends of Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Sinbad. The beginning chapters of The Wrath and the Dawn follow the legend of Scheherazade pretty closely. Every night the Caliph (King) visits his new wife, intending to have her executed at dawn. And every night Sharhzad spins out a little more of a story, being sure to reach a climax or an interesting twist just as the sun breaches the windows of her bedroom. Hoping to hear more of the story, the evil king allows her to live another day.

Author Renee Ahdieh draws a sumptuous portrait of life in ancient Arabia. Sharhzad’s life in the royal palace is filled with colorful silks, rich damask, and tables laid with fresh fruits and cheeses. Conspicuously absent from the narrative is the inherent sexism of the culture during this time period, allowing her protagonist a level of freedom and expression that would almost certainly not have been tolerated from a woman. Sharhzad is a strong, outspoken woman who never hesitates to speak her mind. From the onset of the novel, her every fiber is focused on wreaking vengeance upon the man who stole her friend from her. She is determined to survive at all costs.

Until all of a sudden she is magically transformed into a lovelorn girl. This metamorphosis comes out of nowhere, and doesn’t seem rooted in logic. Sharhzad begins to fall in love with the Caliph for reasons that are never fully explained. He has murdered dozens of women but by the end of day three her heart is fluttering? It seems to be a case of a character performing an action simply because it is needed to further the plot. This is meant to be a love story, therefore Sharhzad must fall in love whether or not it fits in with everything we know about her so far.

Ahdieh attempts to soften the king by allowing him to open up to his new queen, sharing stories of his early life and giving him opportunities to defend her honor and whatnot. There is also a mystery surrounding his decision to kill all of these innocent women, which we are led to believe will absolve the king of responsibility for his actions. But the bodies of seventy dead women cannot be denied, and Sharhzad’s sudden and inexplicable decision to throw her lot in with a man who has allowed these acts of violence rings false.

Somehow, despite my objections to the love story presented in this novel, I found myself drawn into the story of Sharhzad as she struggles between the pulling of her heart and the revenge in her mind. And when I finished The Wrath and the Dawn, I immediately put the sequel, The Rose and the Dagger, on a wait list at my local library. So kudos to the writing style of Renee Ahdieh, for drawing me into this story almost in spite of myself.

My rating: 3.5/5

You can find The Wrath and the Dawnhere on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

Side-note: I’ve never actually read One Thousand and One Nights. How does it compare?

Late one night Elizabeth Sanderson receives devastating news. Her fourteen year old son Tommy has gone missing while out with friends in the woods of a local park. As the days go by with no news and no clues as to where Tommy may have gone, Elizabeth begins experiencing odd occurrences around her home. She comes to believe that the ghost of her son may be trying to communicate with her, to help solve the mystery of his disappearance.

This was yet another book that I had been waiting to read until I was on my annual camping trip. I had heard good things about author Paul Tremblay and had hopes of a creepy suspenseful ghost story to read in the woods. However, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock turned out to be more of a look at how different family members deal with grief, with a few strange happenings once in awhile. It isn’t really a “ghost” story in the classic sense of the word.

The main narrative focuses on Elizabeth and her eleven-year old daughter Kate as they navigate the increasingly fruitless attempts to find Tommy. The different ways that they deal with the frustrations, fear, and desperation come out in wildly varying ways. Elizabeth believes that she may or may not have received a vision from Tommy’s spirit, and becomes increasingly sure of that her son will not be found alive. Grace begins searching through Tommy’s things in an effort to understand the events leading up to his disappearance, and finds some disturbing sketches and diary entries made by her brother in his final days.

The second, lesser part of the plot is from the perspective of Tommy and his friends in the week before he goes missing. The boys roam the woods freely on their bicycles, eventually meeting a stranger who tells them a folktale involving a devil trapped in the rocky hills of the park. Their lives begin to spin out of control, and they attempt to form a plan that will rid them of the menace that has begun to stalk them.

This novel has an intriguing premise but ultimately fails to deliver. Too much of the narrative is given over to Elizabeth staring at the phone, or off into space. The character of Grace is more compelling, but she is given little to do except go to places her mother tells her not to and listen to angsty music from the ’90s. I kept waiting for Devil’s Rock to pick up the pace and ramp up the tension but it never quite managed. The final act is also delivered in a very odd way that actually served to distance me further from Tommy and Elizabeth’s story.

My rating: 2.5/5

You can find The Disappearance at Devil’s Rockhere on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

I seem to experiencing a pattern of disappointing horror novels lately. Any suggestions?

Once a year, Scoutmaster Tim leads a troop of boys on a weekend expedition to small, uninhabited Falstaff Island, off the coast of Prince Edward Island in Canada. This year begins in a similar manner, the boys arrive and scare each other with ghost stories around a bonfire. But when a mysterious stranger turns up, pale, emaciated and desperately hungry, Tim and the boys are soon dealing with a nightmare unlike anything they could have imagined.

I had been sitting on this book for a few months, with the aim of scaring myself silly while in the forests of the Bruce Peninsula on a camping trip. I was hoping for a claustrophobic, lost in the woods against an unknown enemy kind of thriller. The Troop ended up being quite different from my expectations.

This is a novel that is dying for a longer exposition. The introduction of the mysterious stranger, which sets the plot in motion, happens a mere twenty pages into the book. This leaves almost no time for characterization or suspense to build, and instead the Scoutmaster and his troop of adolescent boys are reduced to the barest of placeholders. There’s Kent the idiotic bully. Newton the nerd. Ephraim, who has severe anger management problems. Shelley, the moon-faced sociopath. And Max, the only “normal” one out of the bunch. The boys never stray far from these one-sentence descriptions, which means that I as a reader never grew to care about any of their fates. I found myself wishing that author Nick Cutter had dedicated fifty or so pages at the beginning of The Troop to setting the scene a little more.

Cutter also seems to be one of those horror writers who equivocate loads of gory details with true suspense. There are numerous and graphic descriptions of bodies being broken open, innards exposed, spines being twisted, etc. The problem is that it never really leaves much of an impression. A truly great scary novel makes you feel as if you are right there experiencing the horrors. The Troop felt more like watching a particularly gruesome medical documentary on the Discovery Channel. It was distantly interesting, but that’s about it. Giving that these gross things are happening to a group of children, this theoretically should have upped the fear factor, but due to the aforementioned lack of characterization it still fell flat.

Overall, I was disappointed in this novel. I had been hoping for something along the lines of Adam Nevill’s The Ritual, which built a creeping sense of dread by building the character’s fear along with the readers’. Instead I was left with a rather icky but ultimately dull venture into the Canadian wilderness.

Alice Lindgren has no idea how she ended up in the White House. A quiet book-loving girl from rural Wisconsin, Alice dreamed of being marrying her childhood crush and becoming a librarian. But a tragic accident changes the course of her life, and Alice finds herself married to man whose political views don’t align with hers, and whose political ambitions far surpass her own dreams. Alice finds herself struggling to remember who she is in a world of privilege and power.

I connected immediately with the protagonist in American Wife. Alice is a book-nerd who feels more at home within the pages of a novel than she does with others. She is not always comfortable in social situations, and deals with a lot of anxiety when meeting new people. I identified with Alice’s relationship with her grandmother, an equally avid reader who often neglects her family in favor of a world between the pages. I have always credited my grandmother with my love of reading, and the bond between Alice and Emilie was sincerely touching.

The plot of American Wife is a like a slowly moving river that gradually picks up speed as it goes along. It meanders its way through the key points in Alice’s life, showing the intimate snapshots of her life rather than drawing back to see the whole picture. There are wide jumps in time, and the story is not always linear. After a hundred pages or so, a small part of my brain kept asking when the book would be “getting to the point”. But the story of a person’s life doesn’t work like that, and instead Sittenfeld winds us through the aspects of Alice’s life that have led her to where she is now. All those little triumphs and tragedies that make up a person. And although it does move slowly, American Wife is far from static.

I was not aware until completing this novel that author Curtis Sittenfeld is a woman. This explains the focus on the bonds between women in this book. Alice’s relationships with her grandmother, her mother, her best friends, and her daughter are the keystones of her character. As Alice’s life takes her far from her country upbringing, the strength of these relationships are what sustain her through the transition. While reading this novel, I found myself treasuring the female relationships in my life. So many books focus on the “frenemy” circle of female friends, and it was nice to see something so open and trusting.

Much has been said about this novel being a loose re-telling of the life of former First Lady Laura Bush. I had no idea going in that this novel was anything other than a work of fiction, but apparently Sittenfeld took the broad strokes from Bush’s life and worked them into the character of Alice Lindgren. The comparison doesn’t become blatantly apparent until the final act, when Alice and her husband find themselves in the White House, but many of the important milestones from Bush’s childhood and early life are represented in American Wife. Some people have called this a breach of privacy in the lieu of yellow journalism, especially since the character of Alice finds herself in a few situations that the First Lady would certainly not want associated with her person. While I personally did not find that the book intruded on Bush’s life in a deliberately harmful or malicious manner, that would be a judgement for each individual reader to make.

While reading American Wife I chose to distance the character of Alice Lindgren from any resemblance to the former First Lady. Removing the political factor, what is left is a novel with wonderfully written protagonist that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Acclaimed primatologist Frans de Waal presents the argument that human morality predates and exists outside of religion and spirituality. He uses years of research on groups of great apes such as bonobos and chimpanzees as evidence that it is evolution, not religion, that gives humanity their moral center.

I’m having a difficult time trying to define how I feel about this book, partially because I’m not sure how the author felt about writing it. I got the sense that Frans de Waal was trying to capitalize on the increasingly popularity of the anti-religion movement, but didn’t really have anything new to say on the subject.

The basis of de Waal’s book relies on two simple questions. First, are animals capable of demonstrating basic morality and altruism? And does our belief in a deity define humanity’s concept of morality, or are humans capable of acting in a moral fashion without the strictures of organized religion? The problem is that both of these questions is that they can easily be answered with a resounding YES. There are thousands of viral videos on YouTube of animals helping one another with no expectation of personal gain, and “unlikely animal friendships” is one of the most popular channels on Instagram. In terms of morality predating religion, toddlers as young as two are capable of demonstrating altruistic and moral behavior. As it is highly unlikely that they have been indoctrinated into believing in a deity at such a young age, it can be determined that morality is trait shared by all of humanity.

Frans de Waal seems to realize that he doesn’t have a lot to say on this issue, and instead bounces wildly from topic to topic, sharing anecdotes and thoughts without really offering any new evidence to back up his statements. The most interesting chapters of this book are the ones that share various observations and studies on animal behavior. No on can look into the eyes of an ape without seeing a bit of ourselves reflected back. Dozens of anecdotes and studies from scientists around the globe have shown that apes are capable of interpreting fairness, social welfare, and empathy. The title The Bonobo and the Atheist is a bit misleading, since the overwhelming bulk of de Waal’s remarks come from the study of chimpanzees. I can only guess than he chose to put bonobos in the title because they are known as the “hippies” of the ape kingdom. They have a matriarchal society that relies heavily on sex as a peace-keeping and bonding tool. But there were very few instances of de Waal ever working directly with bonobos, so I assume that the title choice just felt sexier somehow.

Another distraction was de Waal’s constant need to play art critic. He draws constant references to Hieronymus Bosch’s 16th century painting The Garden of Earthly Delights. These references are completely out of place in a book about the morality and social bonds of apes and humans. He uses the painting to draw references to the religion portion of his argument, which is most definitely the thinner side. But these observations fall flat, mainly because I don’t care about art theory in a book about morality. I still can’t figure out exactly what the point was of these numerous interjections, except perhaps that de Waal really enjoys the work of Bosch.

If this review seems a bit all over the place, it’s because that was the overall tone of The Bonobo and the Atheist. Frans de Waal may be a renowned primatologist, but this does not give him any weight to make pronouncements on the need and desire for religion among societies. He spends a fair bit of time disparaging atheists for fighting so furiously against something that they view as imaginary. But de Waal shies away from making any grand declarations on the existence of nonexistence of a higher power. He seems to understand that no one can make that statement, and focuses much more of his time and attention making an argument for the existence of morality in mammalian species.

Overall, this book contained a lot of interesting observations on the animal kingdom. I enjoyed learning more about chimpanzee and bonobo society. But at no time did I ever feel that the author had a strong opinion on the argument he was trying to make. Which made this book feel ultimately like a cynical cash grab. Which if you think about it, is not a terribly moral action.

My rating: 2/5

You can find The Bonobo and the Atheisthere on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

This post is dedicated to Koko the gorilla, who taught us so much about the existence of souls in animals.